They’re Lyrics That I Love The Most From Within Our Tracks. They’re Words That I Want To Say To Us,

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

APH | Nyo!Germany.

Witch Work by Neil Gaiman.

The Counselors Are In

In which Steve and Tony from Avengers Assemble open a counseling service for all the Steves and Tonys across the multiverse. God knows they need it. To celebrate #10yearsofstevetony ♥

“But Tony, doesn’t it seem like meddling?” Steve chewed at the corner of his lip. “Maybe the other versions of us won’t want to listen to what we have to say.”

“We are pretty stubborn, I’m sure that’s true in every universe,” Tony said with a grin. “But I’ve seen some of the places they come from. Things are not good there. They need our help, Steve.”

Steve heart swelled at the care Tony had for everyone, even if they were from a different universe. “You’re right, honey. Come on then. Let’s do this.”

“Okay,” Tony called out, taking his hand, matching wedding bands sat atop each other. “Send the first pair in.”

MCU (Earth-199999)

“Have you two ever spent any time together outside of a mission?” Tony asked, eyeing them strangely.

“Uhh. There was that one time we got shawarma,” Grumpy Steve said.

“That was right after a mission and you were half asleep. That doesn’t count,” Grumpy Tony said snappishly.

“So you’ve never actually… hung out? As friends? Like, at all?” Tony asked, seeming genuinely perplexed.

“Well. When you put it like that, not really, no,” Grumpy Steve admitted.

“I think we may have discovered the root of your issues,” Steve said with a sigh. “Why not try talking to each other, for god’s sake?”

“Because he hates me,” both Grumpy Steve and Grumpy Tony wailed in unison.

“He really doesn’t,” Steve and Tony both said firmly.

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is it you who changed or is it me

A love story where the two protagonists just refuse to fall for each other even though the plot keeps pushing for it.

What is the most devastatingly beautiful thing you have ever read?

This passage from Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. *sigh*

How about you?

she raised an eye indeed to the beauty of Gilgamesh, or, Ishtar did nothing wrong

One of the canons I follow just introduced its version of the goddess Ishtar as a character. From what little I’ve been able to read translated so far, I like her a lot. But a lot of the fandom has been kind of losing its shit over what a horrible character she must be based partly on very limited and biased in-universe evidence but mostly on cherry-picked selections from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Did I mention Gilgamesh in this canon is a huge fan favorite? Yeah.

Anyway, I’ve spent most of the past year researching the mythology surrounding star goddesses of love and sovereignty in the Ancient Near East, starting with Inanna and her near-counterpart Ishtar. So I am well-placed now to explain why, in fact, Ishtar did nothing wrong in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

I mean, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. She’s a goddess, and ancient deities are frequently assholes just in general. But it’s not entirely untrue either. See, you can’t divorce stories from their culture entirely; you need to know a little about the culture of ancient Babylon to understand the Epic of Gilgamesh. It turns out that in context, the whole matter of Ishtar’s advances on Gilgamesh and subsequent reaction to his rejection of her is way more complicated than it appears.

Under the cut: a brief lesson in ancient Sumerian and Babylonian religion and the explanation of why Ishtar did nothing wrong.

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I will say, thank you. I've been trying to get enough info to write a reasonably historical fic for a while, and now I have somewhere to start!

Some things England/Spain shippers (and the rest of the Hetalia fandom) get wrong

“Spain’s hegemony over the seas ended after the Armada’s defea-”

“The Anglo-spanish war (1585-1604) was a victory for Engl-”

“British Empire replaced Spanish Empire after 1588”

“Both Empires (Spanish and British) were even during X perio-”

“England and Spain have always been enemi-”

“England has always beaten the crap out of Spa-”

England/Spain is my OTP, and since I’ve read too many times things like the ones listed above I think some real historical stuff would be enlightening for everybody. So, shall we?

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she makes some really excellent points, and calls out all the higher-ups who were in charge of this movie, not putting the blame on the artists and actors who worked incredibly hard on the movie, like so many other reviews have done